


6 New Messages

by lurker_writes



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen, the eternal spectre of Sephiroth's disdain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 20:46:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16751260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurker_writes/pseuds/lurker_writes
Summary: It has been months since the Incident. Grief is a complicated thing for a man like Hojo. Spite is a cleaner solution.





	6 New Messages

**Author's Note:**

> Posting this here before tumblr implodes.

They never packed up Sephiroth’s apartment. Hojo dove into the second series of Project S experiments, which he continued to tell himself had nothing to do with revenge. (They had everything to do with revenge, against those idiots, against that town, against the company...)

He finally returned to Midgar and was confronted with the request. 'Please clean out your project's former living space, we would like to use it.’ As if any of those inconsequential creatures deserved to take what was his! None of them had been good enough! _None_ , and he had told Sephiroth over and over and over again—

But… he never listened.

He put the key into the deadbolt and jiggled several times before he loosened the pins up from their long disuse. The lock retracted with a solid _thump_. He took a deep breath, and slid his ID through the scanner.

The lights flashed green, the maglocks on the doorknob disengaged.

Sephiroth swore he was going to revoke Hojo’s access one day. Hojo had always laughed. ‘ _No, you won’t_.’

The blinds were all drawn. The blinds were always drawn. Sephiroth wandered about in darkness, the icon of ShinRa’s power who used no electricity. Half of the lamps probably didn’t even have bulbs in them.

It felt like he was going to turn his head and see Sephiroth standing there, just there, leaned with his arms crossed against the corner where the corridor met the living space, his eyes the brightest thing in the room. _‘No, I won’t turn on a light. That would imply that you are welcome._ ’

Hojo flipped the switch by the door. There was no light.

He navigated to the hall by memory. His hand fell on that corner, just between two dents in the drywall, one about level with his shoulder and one with his chin. He let it linger there, for balance. Yes, for balance.

The light in the hall came on.

His eyes adjusted slowly.

Before him, an open door. An unmade bed; sensible white sheets, a deep blue blanket of hideous velour. ‘ _The biggest blanket in Midgar, apparently_.’

The air in the apartment smelled… old. Not stale, or musty, but… not unlike the air in certain caves. _Not lived in_. The sharp, vegetal, nose-stinging scent of mako that accumulated wherever a SOLDIER lived still lingered, if only faintly. It had lingered on Sephiroth, too; seemed to ooze out of his pores. No amount of shampoo had quite covered it. How many bottles would be in the bathroom? Two kinds of shampoo, three conditioners in different consistencies and formulations open on the shower bench? ‘ _If I believed you ever washed your hair, I may bother explaining_.’ Soap, deodorant, cologne, a used towel? Clothes still in the hamper that had marinated for months in sweat?

He backed down the hall again.

Too many… too many products. So fussy.

The kitchen first.

There was still a light in the kitchen. At least he’d been done that courtesy.

No new specimens of life in the fridge, thank Leviathan. Three canisters of protein powder and eight unopened jars of peanut butter in the pantry. One dirty spoon in the sink.

‘ _I am so gratified that you are twenty years old, and I can still have the pleasure of watching you eat peanut butter from the jar and shove fistfuls of dry cereal into your face like an unruly toddler. Stop glowering at me, boy, I’ve brought a new ration formula to test on the singularity you have in place of a digestive system.’_

‘ _Stop letting yourself in whenever you please._ ’

‘ _Then answer the phone for once!_ ’

For…

His phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out without looking at it.

There was one chair at the kitchen table, left pulled out at an angle. He sank down into it for the first time. Uncomfortable. Padding broken down by someone of a different size and weight.

His phone buzzed again in his hand. He flipped it open with a now familiar weight of dread across his shoulders.

> _6 new messages!_
> 
> _Sephiroth, Sep 25, 8:07 pm_
> 
> _Sephiroth, Sep 27, 10:12 am_
> 
> _Sephiroth, Sep 30, 9:48 pm_
> 
> _Sephiroth, Sep 30, 10:51 pm_
> 
> _Sephiroth, Sep 30, 11:36 pm_

…

> _Sephiroth, Oct 1, 2:25 am_

…

None of them had been good enough.

He never listened.

Answer the phone for once.

He took off his glasses and put his head down on the table. It still smelled faintly, absurdly, of peanut butter.

He was going to get up, in a moment. He was going to pack up this apartment, and not let ShinRa have so much as a dirty sock.

And then he was going to go back to Nibelheim, and continue his work.

Those idiots had no right to what they took, and he was going to make them give it back.


End file.
